Shamji’s endorsement packs a punch

Former candidate is now the second aspirant to endorse Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie

And then there were four.

Dr. Adil Shamji, perhaps the most idealistic candidate in the Liberal leadership race, is out.

But he’s not just bowing out, he’s banking on possibly the most electable candidate, front-runner Bonnie Crombie, with a surprise endorsement.

His move is a big deal, because his decision has implications for the four remaining candidates. It shakes up a race that was already fiercely contested.

Typically, the leading candidate is targeted by the also-rans for an “anybody-but-frontrunner” movement. Yet there are no signs of a coherent ABC (“Anybody-butCrombie”) movement coalescing against the high-profile three-term mayor of Mississauga.

To the contrary, Shamji is now the second leadership aspirant to rally for Crombie as the Liberals’ best bet: Stephanie Bowman, the Don Valley West MPP (who kept her riding Liberal after Kathleen Wynne’s departure), had looked closely at a leadership run before pulling out to endorse Crombie.

That these two heavy hitters with two very different pathways — Shamji is a physician who worked with homeless people, Bowman was a Bank of Canada director — see eye to eye on Crombie is significant. Both MPPs bring an infusion of new blood to a Liberal party seeking a transfusion of talent.

Shamji’s journey is revealing on many levels. I’ve long thought (and written) that he had a great story to tell, if he could get Liberals to listen.

Not just the youngest candidate but the widest experience; not just an MD from the University of Toronto but a masters of public policy from Oxford University; not just shifts in emergency rooms but medical supervisor of 11 Toronto homeless shelters; not just experience in northern outposts but service in Indigenous reserves.

But the good doctor with the big heart is nothing if not hard-headed. When Shamji’s campaign didn’t gain the traction nor raise the funding it needed to compete, he landed on a diagnosis and prognosis:

“I will continue my campaign in a different capacity, still fighting for health care, housing, education and the environment, but from now on behind Bonnie Crombie,” Shamji said.

Why Crombie? Those following the race on social media might have imagined that Shamji would instantly join hands with the other 39-year-old Oxonian seeking the youth vote, Nate Erskine-Smith.

While Erskine-Smith will tell anybody who listens that he’s a new kind of politician appealing to youthful idealists, Shamji isn’t buying what he’s selling. While Shamji is undeniably new blood, ErskineSmith is certifiably a veteran of elected politics after eight years as MP for Beaches—East York.

There is no bad blood between them, but there is no love lost either. At the first official leadership debate in Thunder Bay, ErskineSmith rankled rivals by saying he envisioned Shamji as his health minister in an Erskine-Smith cabinet — prompting audible groans in the room and a sharp reply from Shamji saying he wasn’t about to be patronized and pigeonholed.

One could almost imagine him retorting that Erskine-Smith would never make it into a Shamji cabinet, given that he’s never made the cut as a minister in Ottawa. But Shamji’s style is to rise above partisanship, so he didn’t take the shot.

Shamji came late to the campaign, and paid a price in a lagging ground game. Given his own weaknesses, he was all the more struck by the strength of Crombie’s fundraising power and organizational prowess — she leads the field on both fronts.

At the last Liberal debate, held at the TMU Democracy Forum, Ottawa Centre MP Yasir Naqvi also went on the attack against Crombie acusing her of taking funds from developers.

But Naqvi’s criticism seems to be falling flat. You have to know your audience in a leadership race, and the last thing Liberals want to hear — after trailing both Tories and New Democrats badly in fundraising — is that the Liberals have to be more pure than anyone else.

Naqvi’s rhetoric rings especially hollow given his past roles as a provincial cabinet minister and party president who presided over the bad old days of untrammeled corporate and union donations (until the Liberals belatedly banned the practice under intense media pressure). And while developers donated generously to the party in Naqvi’s time, it never stopped the Liberals from proclaiming the Greenbelt.

The critique that Crombie is in the pocket of developers loses its edge when the most idealistic candidate has gone to her side. It also belies her early lead among Liberals.

An Angus Reid poll released earlier this month showed Crombie enjoys twice the recognition factor of her closest opponents, and is the “most appealing” choice for those who vote Liberal (31 per cent, versus less than four per cent for her rivals, including Kingston-area MPP Ted Hsu).

A lot can still happen between now and late November when Liberals cast their ballots. But what happened this week may well change the dynamics.

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I will continue my campaign in a different capacity, still fighting for health care, housing, education and the environment, but from now on, behind Bonnie Crombie

ADIL SHAMJI FORMER LIBERAL LEADERSHIP CANDIDATE